








































Anabaptist/Mennonite


30

DENOMINATIONAL  
GROUP REPORTS

Anabaptist/Mennonite 
Jennifer Ulrich, Eastern Mennonite University, Secretary

MEMBERS PRESENT

• Jennifer Ulrich, Eastern Mennonite University
• Karl Stutzman, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
• Kevin Enns-Rempel, Fresno Pacific University
• Vic Froese, Canadian Mennonite University

AGENDA

Discussion of each school’s highlights 

ROUND ROBIN REPORTS

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN, USA - AMBS 
Library said farewell to Information Services Librarian Brandon 
Board in May 2022. In August 2022, we hired Kajsa Herrstrom as 
Resource Access Librarian, and rearranged job duties somewhat. 
Kajsa is a recent AMBS graduate. AMBS continues to have increas-
ing international connections in the campus and online student 
bodies. We are starting a new Korean distance program and a 
Spanish certificate program. Our library student staff are all in-
ternational students. We are exploring collaboration with Men-
nonite Historical Library at Goshen College and Meserete Kristos 
Church & Seminary in Ethiopia on Amharic language Anabaptist 
collections. More on that (including participation possibilities for 



Denominational Group Reports  31

other Anabaptist/Mennonite libraries) may be forthcoming after 
this summer. Kajsa is working with retired AMBS library director 
Eileen Saner on the reorganization and collection management of 
our special collections room. We are also working to put some of 
late professor Alan Kreider’s work online (a pre-pandemic project 
that became a post-pandemic project).

Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA - Several 
librarians have been on sabbatical in the past year. Our Special 
Collections Librarian and Archivist, Simone Horst (sabbatical Sum-
mer 2022), spent her sabbatical reviewing the European Collection 
of the Menno Simons Historical Library. Volumes were evaluated 
for binding features and marginalia. She used this information to 
connect the rare materials in the collection to courses offered by 
EMU. 

Marci Frederick, Director of Libraries (sabbatical Summer 2023), 
is researching churches in the Brethren tradition and their com-
munion practices.  They have developed an unusual unleavened 
bread for communion (flour, butter, salt, milk/cream, and some-
times sugar). She is looking at how this came to be, who still uses 
this recipe, and what its making and use can reveal about women’s 
spirituality and church ritual practice in a non-sacramental tradi-
tion.

Eastern Mennonite Seminary has started a graduate certificate 
program in Faith-based peacebuilding.

Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, CA, USA - Our main focus in 
the Mennonite Library & Archives recently has been digitization 
of collections. Our initial focus was photograph collections, but has 
expanded to include university publications (student newspapers, 
student yearbooks, university magazines), audio recordings, and 
video recordings. Most of these resources have been uploaded to 
https://digitalfpu.fresno.edu, where they are available to the pub-
lic.

Our cataloger, Vern Carter, retired in June 2023. We will not be re-
placing him in the immediate future due to university budget cuts, 
so cataloging tasks will be picked up by other librarians.

Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, MB, Canada - Like 
many universities in North America, CMU is facing challenges on 
several fronts. We are working to bring enrollment up to pre-COVID 
levels. Declines have largely been the result of a lower number of 



32    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

international students, but even domestic students are in shorter 
supply.  With tuition income declining, the university has encour-
aged early retirement for senior faculty, which some have chosen 
to take that step. It has also introduced a Social Work program, for 
which courses will be offered in the Fall of this year. Early signs of 
interest are encouraging, raising hopes that the program can even-
tually offset enrollment drops elsewhere, if not raise our overall 
enrollment to a higher level. For the library, of course, this new 
program means finding affordable ways to provide our students 
with resources we do not currently have.

Another new development is a donation by renowned Mennonite 
author Rudy Wiebe of a substantial part of his personal library. 
The donation includes first editions of all the books he’s written 
and all international language versions. Many of the historical 
works Wiebe consulted along the way are part of this collection. 
We anticipate that this addition to the library will be an important 
resource to our students and perhaps bring a few Canadian litera-
ture scholars to our campus.


